Forage harvesters are used for the harvesting of whole plants or their parts, which are gathered from a field during operation by means of a harvesting attachment, are compressed by pre-pressing rollers, and are conducted to a chopping drum, whose chopping blades cut the plants in interaction with a counter-blade. Subsequently, the cut plants or parts are optionally conducted to a conditioning device and are conveyed by means of a post-acceleration device into a discharge spout which transfers them to a transporting vehicle. Generally, the harvested plants are used as cattle feed or for the production of biogas. The conditioning device usually comprises two or more rollers driven in opposite directions, which are pre-tensioned against one another by an elastic force, and between which, the chopped material is conducted. It is used in the harvesting of corn, so as to beat the grains contained in the chopped material and to improve the digestibility of the feed.
A known embodiment of a conditioning device is described in DE 197 03 486 A1, according to which the rollers are composed of alternating sections of smaller and larger diameter, which follow one another in the axial direction and have teeth in their circumference. Smaller sections of a first roller are placed opposite the larger sections of the second rollers, interacting with the first roller, and vice-versa, so that the larger sections of the second roller are introduced between the larger sections of the first roller. The sections are designed as rings and are mounted in a form-locking manner on a carrier roller. Corn grains are broken up by the teeth on the circumference of the sections and husks are comminuted on the radial edges of the sections. With another embodiment, a roller with cutting disks is provided, and these are inserted between toothed, cylindrical sections and penetrate into the slots or grooves of the other roller, which are deeper than the teeth of the toothed sections. Here, the production and putting together of the sections prove to be cumbersome and cost-intensive.
DE 103 43 253 A1 describes another conditioning device, in which a roller shell of the conditioning roller is equipped with different slopes, which have the same depth in a first embodiment and are conducted around the roller shell in opposite directions in the form of a helix. In a second embodiment, first grooves extend, in the circumferential direction around the toiler and second grooves in the axial direction, wherein the formed sawtooth-shaped profile blocks of one roller are aligned axially with complementary profile grooves of the other roller. In the second embodiment, which is easier to produce with regard to manufacturing technology than the first embodiment and by the immersion of the profile blocks of one roller into the profile grooves of the other roller first makes possible the maceration of the corn grains, the wreaths of sharp teeth, which are successive in the axial direction on the surface of the roller, are formed. Between these wreaths (that is, in the first grooves, introduced in the circumferential direction), the roller shell, however, is completely smooth so that a processing of the crop cannot take place there. For this reason, the effect of this conditioning device is not always sufficient.
Similar roller shells with grooves in the axial direction and the circumferential direction are described in DE 10 2007 033 092 A1. Here, too, the bottoms of the circumferential grooves are smooth and do not help in the processing of the crop. FR 2 831 776 A1 shows a roller shell with an undulating profile, whose wave crests have teeth in the circumferential direction. The wave troughs are, in fact, smooth.
Finally, DE 43 27 592 A1 shows an arrangement with two rollers for the processing of crops, in which profile blocks of one roller mesh in circumferential grooves of the other roller.